Stargazing • MCU/S. Rogers Fanfic•

2-29: Intense Game of Cops and Robbers

Somewhere in California

December 23, 2012

-☆-

"What happened?" Pepper asked Maya at the hotel room. The three females sat on the bed, while Chase was on his phone on a chair.

"Fun fact." Maya started. "Before he quit rockets for the Nazis, the idealistic Wernher Von Braun dreamed of space travel. He stargazed." Astra smiled to herself, remembering when Tony would take her to the roof and watch the stars. She kept studying stars, even got a PhD in Astronomy. "Do you know what he said when the first v-2 hit London? 'The rocket formed perfectly. It just landed on the wrong planet.' See, we all begin wide-eyed. Pure science. And then the ego steps in, the obsession. And you look up, you're a long way from shore."

"You can't be too hard on yourself, Maya." Pepper tried to comfort. "I mean, you gave your research to a think tank."

"Yeah, but Killian built that think tank on military contracts" Maya pointed out.

"That's exactly what we used to do." Astra countered. "So don't judge yourself."

"Thank you Pepper, Astra." She thanked. "I really appreciate that."

There was a knock on the door and Pep went to answer it.

"Hi, good evening. Come in." She greeted the hotel worker.

"Good evening." He greeted back as he walked in the room.

At the sound of a neck snapping, Astra immediately stood up. "Maya, run" Pepper yelled and tried to run herself. But the man pulled her back and held her against the wall by her neck.

"Let her go!" Astra ordered him, he responded by rolling his eyes at her and turned to Pepper.

"Hi, Pepper." He greeted in a sickening voice, then turned to Maya. "So, you want to tell me why you were at Stark's mansion last night?" He asked her.

"I'm trying to fix this thing." She started. "I didn't know you and the master were gonna blow the place up." Astra decided to get a few more answers before she would interject.

"Oh, I see. So, you were trying to save Stark when he threatened us?"

"I told you, Killian, we can use him." Pepper tried to get Killian to let her go, but failed.

"Pepper, Pepper, Pepper." He basically told her to stop.

"Look, if we want to launch product next year, I need Stark." That little bitch. "He just lacked a decent incentive. Now, he has two."

"That's not gonna happen." Astra threatened. A moment before she could attack a sharp pain appeared in her neck as someone injected her with an anesthetic.

"Sorry." The voice said. "Can't let you do that." Her vision went black and the last thing she remembered was falling into someone's arms.

*****

Slowly, but surely, the brunette woke up. Hearing muffled voices, she groaned and the voices stopped. She cracked open her eyes a bit, but not too much due to the bright lights. She realized that she was strapped down to a metal bed that stood upright. Everything that once was blurry became clearer as she observed her surroundings.